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+ <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</title>
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+ <div class="title">
+ <h1>
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
+
+ </h1>
+
+ </div>
+
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</div>
+ <div class="date">2011-01-28 15:40</div>
+ <div class="body">
+<p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
+issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
+it should be possible to use the information about security issues
+available on the Internet, and check our locally
+maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
+allow us to verify that no known security issue are forgotten. The
+CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
+and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
+the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
+out which security holes were present in our free software
+collection.</p>
+
+<p>After reading up on the issue, it became obvious that the first
+building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
+consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
+this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
+to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
+existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
+come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
+solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
+Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
+software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
+mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
+Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
+issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
+locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
+This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
+NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
+
+<p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
+name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
+check out, one could look up
+<a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
+in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
+The most recent one is
+<a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
+and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
+list of affected versions is provided.</p>
+
+<p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
+for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
+small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
+affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
+with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
+security issues out.</p>
+
+<p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
+information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
+possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
+RHEL is providing
+<a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
+map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
+information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
+
+<p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
+time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
+the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
+some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
+CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
+Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
+the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
+someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
+corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
+established soon.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
+mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
+RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
+this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
+for their packages.</p>
+</div>
+
+ <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.</div>
+
+ </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div id="sidebar">
+
+<h2>Archive</h2>
+<ul>
+
+<li>2011
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+<li>2010
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+<li>2009
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+<li>2008
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<h2>Tags</h2>
+<ul>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (48)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (59)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (7)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (86)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (11)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (5)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (5)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (11)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (106)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (116)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (18)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (35)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (23)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (7)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (19)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (14)</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+ </body>
+</html>
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